Acocks Green History Society
Shipway Road to Deakins Road
The Shipways came to the area from Berkeley in Gloucestershire. They were involved in a brickworks, furniture making and building. Ada, George, Shipway and Berkeley Roads are named after them, and possibly Arthur and Francis too. Deakins Road is named after the farm.
In attempting to date the shops, only a few of the names match the 1896 directory. Seven out of the nine numbers to number 1088 appear in the 1897 directory. Five more numbers to 1098 appear in the 1899 directory. The rest of the sequence is in the 1900 directory.
There are three replacement blocks: numbers 1076-82, numbers 1100-6 and numbers 1152-4. The Hay Mills Project notes that 1078 and 1080 were affected by bomb damage. While 1078 was not listed in the 1956 directory, 1078 was, with F. and L. Wyer making use of the patched up premises. 1076 and 1082 were in use throughout, but by 1970 1076 and 1078 are occupying the left half of a new block, with Hartley Carpets in business. 1078 and 1080 have Birmingham Car Centre together in the right-hand half. Perhaps the need for larger showrooms had become evident.
Kwiksave, no frills and low-price, opened at 1102-6 c. 1975. In the early 1980s 1100's bakery run by George Baines and Co. gave way to Liquorsave. We do not know as yet when this shop was demolished and incorporated into the new-style building. Neither do we know if this block suffered any bomb damage.
The block of five shops with gables from Berkeley Road had the baker Ernest Harding in the first shop in 1902. It appears this block was not there in 1900. The rest of the buildings to Deakins Road are in the 1899 directory, however three are listed in the 1897 directory, so maybe that is a feasible date. After the block of five, the next six were residential, and the last four were shops. There are no numbers 1140-48.
Ernest Harding was ambitious. He kept his Hay Mills bakery until the business left the Yardley area for Granby Avenue in Garretts Green. They were taken over by Allied Bakeries. They had a large bakery across the Coventry Road opposite the Swan, the Royal Bakery or the Royal Steam Bakery, until the roundabout alterations of the 1960s. it appears on a map surveyed in 1913. The company lauded its Ideal Bread, and especially its Sunshine Bread which was irradiated - with UV light, i.e. artificial sunshine. Ernest Harding was President of the Master Bakers Association in 1917.
